Voting never gets old for these centenarians

By Joe Holley |
July 28, 2012
| Updated: July 28, 2012 11:40pm

From left, Phillip Greenberg, Anna Robinson, and Trudy Simon still cast ballots, with the help of volunteer Ida Silverstein at Seven Acres home.

"I vote, because I should have a voice in government," Philip Greenberg was saying one sunny morning recently as he sat in the parlor of Seven Acres Jewish Senior Care Services, his residence since 2005. "That's a problem when no one takes advantage of it."

The retired traveling salesman knows whereof he speaks. He has been voting for 80 years, since Franklin D. Roosevelt warned his fellow Americans that all they had to fear was fear itself, since Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, since gasoline was 10 cents a gallon.

Greenberg, 101, cast his first presidential vote for FDR and was a Democrat for decades, but not anymore. "I'm a staunch Republican," he said. "I don't mind telling anyone."

A New York City native who lived in Chattanooga, Tenn., for many years before moving to Houston, Greenberg is one of at least three centenarians at Seven Acres who still has an interest in public affairs and voting.

Growing population

The three are among some 72,000 centenarians around the country, according to Census Bureau estimates. They represent the fastest-growing segment of the population in terms of age. Thanks to health care advances and greater awareness of good health habits, a number remain active, their bodies in relatively good shape, their minds still attuned to the world around them.

"The elderly in this country represent one of our most precious resources," said Malcolm P. Slatko, a gerontologist and chief executive officer at Seven Acres, where he has worked for 35 years. "In many ways, they are as astute or more astute politically than the generic population. They watch TV, they listen to the radio, they're on the Internet. They have more life experience than any other generation."

"Voting here for us is part of our resident rights," said Sue Corcorve, the director of recreational and volunteer services at Seven Acres, where she has worked for the past 33 years. "We assure that everybody has the opportunity to vote."

Anna Robinson has not been voting for as long as Greenburg, even though at 102 she is a year older. The retired J.C. Penney employee did not vote in the early decades of her life because she lived in New Orleans, where African-American access to the ballot was not always guaranteed, to say the least.

"We had a right to vote, but we didn't have it," she said. "It wasn't allowed."

Her daughter, Marva Robinson LeBeau, recalled how she once was challenged by a voting registrar when she went to her polling place. The registrar insisted she had put down the wrong birth date. "How do you know?" LeBeau recalls asking indignantly.

Forced to move at 95

In her younger days, Robinson sang with a gospel group that traveled the country and later helped her now-deceased husband, a minister, with the congregation's music ministry. At age 65, Robinson got a degree in Christian education from Union Baptist Seminary.

In New Orleans, Robinson also worked as a voting commissioner. "She feels it's very important," LeBeau said.

Robinson lived in her own New Orleans apartment until age 95, when Hurricane Katrina forced her and her daughter to evacuate to Houston. She expects to be casting a ballot in November, with help from a volunteer. She knows who she will be voting for, LeBeau said.

Ida Silverstein, a volunteer at Seven Acres for the past 15 years, helps residents vote, although she hastens to add that she cannot advise them how to vote or tell them how she plans to vote. Her assistance is limited to explaining the process and reading the ballot for them line by line, which can get a bit tedious when judicial candidates and other less familiar officeholders are up for election. She relies on the League of Women Voters Guide for answers to any questions the residents may have.

"It's much easier when they want to vote straight ticket," Silverstein said.

In addition to Greenberg and Robinson, Silverstein will be assisting Trudy Simon this fall. Simon, 100, also knows what it means to be deprived of a vote. She and her family fled Nazi Germany in 1939.

Settling in New York, where she made hats for John Fredericks, she made a number of trips to Washington, D.C., during World War II, attempting to see Roosevelt. "Jews were being murdered," she said.

She later lived in Shreveport, La., for many years, where she volunteered at a local hospital and remained active in civic affairs.